The Little Windows
by NoreNeither
Summary: Somewhere in the vast tangle of time and space, a dream-eater finds a vampire. Possibly it's the other way around. Told in vignettes, or little windows (if you will), this story is theirs. Destiel, probably a little bit smutty.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** More  
**Rating:** I dunno PG? Whatev  
**Pairings/Characters:** Castiel/Dean  
**Spoilers:** AU, vampire!Castiel, mahr!Dean  
**Warnings:** none  
**Word Count:** 800

**A/N: **Wrote a surprise fanfic gift for someone, and thought I might make a little book of short fics that had no real place since I have a crapton of them, and I often anon them to people. I may write more in this universe, I like the combo. I am taking liberties with mare/mara/mahr mythology, no doubt.

* * *

A cold hand running through the downy hairs at the back of his neck was all the warning he was given before Dean was jerked back, a hand pulling at his over-long hair and angling him so he was arching uncomfortably, staring at Castiel upside-down, neck straining.

'I told you to wait for me,' he growled, looking down so that Dean could see the whites of his eyes. 'And now I find you like this.'

Dean hissed at the pain. 'I didn't have much choice,' he said through gritted teeth. 'The cuffs were iron.'

Castiel snickered, leaning in so close Dean could feel a chilled breath along the turn of his jaw. 'You think I care?' said Castiel softly. 'You went and got yourself caught-by Hunters, no less.' He moved his hand down the line of Dean's waist, settling possessively in the narrow sway just above his hip. 'You were mine alone. I can smell the human taint on you still. Seven months from me is too long a time out of reach.' He tipped Dean's head to the side, brushing his lips along Dean's temple, feeling the heat of his mate, the thrum of a pulse through the delicate skin, and the energy underpinning everything, shining about him bright and vital. His opposite.

Castiel moved down his cheek, scenting all that Dean was, how much he had changed. His hair was longer, his skin slightly darker from being forced to be outside during sunlight hours, something he wasn't akin to, bound to a vampire as he was.

'I'm – sorry – ' gasped Dean, feeling a prickle of wetness along five points on his scalp, as the nails of his lover reached a hard enough pressure to pierce the skin and make him bleed.

'Did you stoop to whore yourself among them?' said Castiel, running his lips down to the hollow of Dean's throat, resting where his heartbeat lay, now faster with panic, deep under golden flesh, potent and alluring. 'Did you taste their dreams, the essence of the human swine?'

'You make it sound like a sin, being what I am,' said Dean, suddenly defensive, despite the relief of knowing he was safe again with his other half. He tried to elbow the man behind him who held him, arms across his chest, sure as binding iron or pure silver.

Castiel snarled, teeth fully extended. 'I have to rid you of the stain those filthy mud-slingers wrought on your soul,' he spat, gripping his mahr to the point of pain. The creature whined, the instinct to bare his throat warring with his lucid thoughts.

The caress began, callused fingers lifting the edge of his shirt and running up his ribs, his spine, till one hand settled over his thudding heart, the other holding his head immovable against his shoulder. Dean huffed, his breath coming painfully through his tight throat, arousal he couldn't control fighting its way to the forefront of sensation, despite the warning threat of pain deep in his belly. He knew Castiel wouldn't hurt him, never, not really, but that didn't stop him crying out as the vampire bit deep into the flesh of the join between neck and shoulder.

The feeling of his teeth drawing through his vein, points tangling with energy and darkness was incomparable to anything he'd felt in so long. It went to Dean's knees and he staggered slightly, the sure grip of his mate holding him up wholly comforting, weakness threading through his muscles as energy moved from one body to the other.

'Cas,' he mouthed, so little air passing his lips the word was all but inaudible. 'Cas…' Castiel said nothing, but moaned over the flow of rich, dark blood flooding his mouth, and bringing back everything he had missed since his Dean had been stolen from him. With a wet, slipping sound he unhinged his jaw from its grip on his lover and he began to lick the torn flesh, knitting it back, curing the healing bite of any lingering impurity.

'You are mine alone, Dean,' he murmured into the warm skin, still smeared with red from the slowly easing flow of blood. He ran his fingers through the tussock-blond hair of his mahr, and inhaled the newly scrubbed scent that steeped the air, nothing but Dean now, no foreign energy poisoning the perfection of his mate.

A single tear he could not suppress wetted Dean's cheek as he sighed, relaxing back into the strong arms of Castiel. 'Missed this,' he managed to say, feeling drained of energy as he was. 'Missed us.'

Castiel took him by the shoulders and turned him so they were facing one another. 'Never again,' he growled viciously, drawing Dean into a salty-dark kiss that tasted of blood and the spicy brand of poison-black of which Castiel had always tasted. Dean snarled into his mouth in reciprocation, hooking Castiel's tongue with his own as he felt his strength return, fed to him by the vampire in the way he knew Dean liked it. He broke away, green eyes alight with fiery sheen, mirrored in the glossy-pitch of his vampire's.

'More,' was all he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I can't help but continue in this 'verse... for some reason it has really captured me. Sorry for not uploading anything, and sorry these are so short! I tend to write them in my work lunch breaks. Which are, like, half an hour... Let's just say I have very little time to write :(

* * *

He left the boy to slip from his grasp, his fever-sweat brow cooling in the late autumn air. He looked up, eyes glowing in the gloom, a pervading hazel-green that encircled dilated animalistic pupils, rectangular, like a goat's.

'Who's there?' he snarled, his voice guttural with a depth of hidden octaves, above and beyond those of a regular human.

There was no answer, beyond a slight rustling of leaves as the chilled wind blew through the cobbled streets. Dean wiped the slightly salty residue of his meal on his breeches and sharpened his gaze in the direction of the presence he sensed. It was vague—not at all the bright shine of energy and vitality he saw dancing around humans in a dizzying aura. It was confusing, and slightly alarming.

'I said, who is _there?'_ he repeated, angrier this time.

A voice spoke from behind him, before he even knew the being was there. 'I've been trying to figure it out,' it said in a low voice, dry and grating, as if the someone had tried to swallow sandstone. 'What you are.'

Dean turned swiftly, finding himself facing a cloaked figure. The voice continued, 'And I have to say, I'm still puzzled. I've never before encountered a creature like you.' The figure stepped forward, and drew its hood back, revealing… a man. Nothing more. He had dark hair, stiff with dirt, and skin with greying pallor, at least under tone of night. His eyes were a common enough mid-blue, and hollowed in their sockets, the thin skin surrounding them dark with fatigue. On closer inspection, he was bare-footed, his clothes thin almost to tearing, with age and wearing both.

Dean frowned, hackles raised. He had no aura. He felt… _empty. _'Who the fuck are you?' he spat, eyes narrowing and pupils dilating in preparation of a fight.

The stranger raised his hands—blackened from nail to knuckle—in gesture of surrender. 'Castiel,' he said, expression open, 'I'm Castiel.'

'What do you want?' said Dean, not relaxing in the slightest.

'I – I just...' he seemed to falter then, brows drawing together. 'I don't quite know,' he said finally, almost apologetic.

Dean blinked and withdrew, slightly, his poisoning teeth smoothing and merging back to the flattened planes of human dentures. 'Why are you so cold?' he asked before he could think about it. 'You're so _empty.' _It was true, too: the more he looked at the man, the more uneasy he felt, seeing a lack of roiling emotions and energy making him seem—well, _alive. _

A painful smile broke across the man's face. 'You cut to the heart of it, don't you?' he said. 'Makes sense.' He drew his cloak about him then, folding his arms tightly, not moving forward, but neither moving back. 'I mean it, you know,' he continued. 'That's why it makes sense. For what are you? Not human. No, we folk cannot claim that.' His laugh was surprisingly bitter.

Against his better judgement, Dean found himself replying. 'I don't know myself truly what I am,' he said quietly. 'I know only what I need to survive and what I must take.' His honesty surprised himself.

Castiel nodded. 'I, too, know what it is like to take succour from humanity but not…entirely… be a part of it.' He gestured to himself lamely.

'Did I fucking say that?' Dean snapped. 'Speak for yourself; I manage just fine being around people.'

'I did speak for myself,' Castiel said simply, not reacting to Dean's sharp reply. His eyes held emotion, Dean saw, even if he had no energy of soul to match the change.

He was sad, Dean saw suddenly. So very, very sad.

'You're lonely,' Dean said, without thinking.

'Aren't you?' he said, something too small to be a smile crooking the corner of his mouth.

Just then, the boy—Dean's meal—groaned, stirring on the ground where he'd left him. Dean turned, ready to attend to him. When he turned back to Castiel the man was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Okay, so this is actually going to be a thing. What am I thinking? I don't even know anymore. Hopefully it makes a semblance of sense, but knowing me it's highly unlikely.

Un-beta'd, aw yiss.

* * *

'You feed off dreams?' said an incredulous voice from behind, momentarily distracting him. A low voice, husky and deep.

Dean whipped around, a thin line of blood escaping his lips. '_Castiel,' _he growled. That one word contained one tone, but housed multiple implications—surprise, anger, acceptance. Perhaps Castiel was reading too much into it, but Dean just… _shone _with emotion, practically glittered with it, this vibrancy of existence that drew him like moth to flame. It lit up his presence, and Castiel basked in it, desperation to be _near him _colouring his thoughts, leading him to this creature. How anyone could invade his present so fully was so foreign to Castiel; it was something he hadn't felt since he still was human himself. That pull was so, so strong.

'What do you want, Cas?' said Dean. The diminutive of the man's name rolled off his tongue easy as a breath in a morning already hot with summer's pervasion.

He was knocked to the side, then, the bookie's knuckles cracking against his cheekbone. Dean turned back to the man he'd been fighting, eyes black and reflective in the near-dark of the alleyway. He ignored Castiel and sloppily kicked out at the shorter man, bashing him into the brick of the nearest building. 'You kind of caught me in the middle of something, here,' he said, spitting red-stained saliva and, having stalked to the man, dealt one deft swipe to the side of his head, knocking him out cold.

The smell of Dean's blood lacing the air made Castiel begin to shake, but he held himself in check, the slight tremor in his hands the only marker he had any reaction at all.

'I was feeding, y'know, or trying to,' Dean muttered.

He knelt down, next to the fallen human, and placed his palms against his temples, entrenching his fingers in the man's greasy hair. He swallowed heavily and his eyes rolled back as he focussed. Castiel could _see _it, the energy leaving the human and threading its way through Dean's arms and tissues, brightening his aura till it radiated around him, coronal and dazzling-white. His breath stuttered and he stopped, releasing his grip on the man's head. Where his hands had been lilac bruises were blooming under the thin skin, blood and clear fluid seeping through the tissue. Dean shuddered, once, before climbing smoothly to his feet.

'Not how I prefer it,' he said. 'But thanks to you, I didn't have much choice.'

Castiel frowned, digging his fingernails into the flesh of his palm. 'You were fighting him?' he asked, question, not statement.

Dean sighed. 'I was going to put him to sleep a less –' he grappled for a word ' – _invasive_ way. But your presence compelled me. They're easier to coerce when my attention isn't elsewhere.' He frowned and strode out of the alleyway, paying no heed to the paled man slumped against the wall, nor Castiel.

'So it's true,' said Castiel following Dean, his steps a little slower and more measured. 'You are a _mahr._'

Dean snorted, not turning his head. 'Is that what they're calling it now?' He withdrew a small clay-bowl pipe from his breast pocket as he walked. Instead of a match, he rubbed his index finger and thumb together. A tiny spark flickered to life and he hastily thrust it in the chamber and drew in long. He stopped, abruptly, and turned to Castiel, who was following somewhere behind, and slowed his steps to be within speaking range of Dean. 'Why do I interest you so much?' he said. 'What could my life possibly be to attract a dead man walking?'

Castiel's eyes widened at that. He opened his mouth but Dean continued, 'Oh yes, I know what you are. I wonder why I didn't see it sooner. You're a wraith, a vampire, aren't you?' He smiled slowly at Castiel's look of terror, his shocked-rabbit expression. 'I figured you were a myth, some children's story—the wily vampire that steals mothers away and drains them dry. But you're real as I am.' He took a step closer, and exhaled smoky breath. 'But a question, Castiel the Vampire: why me? Why stalk me in the dead of night like some villain waiting to take me out? Because be forewarned, I'm not incompetent when it comes to defending myself.'

Castiel looked torn between turning heel to flee and answering. A second later he make his decision. 'Your light,' he said, voice dry and softer than it was before. 'I can't help it. I've never met anyone like you. You just… I can't help it.'

Dean frowned, expression a cross between incredulous and puzzled. 'My… light?' he said, raising an eyebrow.

Castiel nodded mutely. 'You see it, don't you?' he gestured around, only half-committed to the expression. 'Humans, their souls. The energy they give out it flares, like candle-flame.' He drew his thin cloak about himself tighter, shivering slightly. 'They're like pricks of light, brief sparks that are all too easy to snuff away.' He blinked up at Dean, somehow closer now, in the hollow solemnity of the orpiment light. He looked exhausted, but his eyes somehow still held some flicker of depth in his gaze that was unwavering, ripe to the very centre. If not a soul, Dean could still see he was feeling—at the very least—emotion. He licked his lips slowly before continuing. 'But you… you're not like that,' he said. His lashes were long and dark, casting a smudging of shadow in the gaslight caressing his skin. His features were not as schooled as they were before. His expression was still mild but, Dean saw, somehow a hint of awe had crept up in the softening of his eyes, and the naturally downturned line of his mouth, which on his usually blank face spoke more than words.

His voice dropped in pitch and volume, till it was barely there. 'You're so bright you put the sun to shame,' he breathed, a few long inches from Dean's ear. He hadn't realised he'd come near Dean at all, yet here he was. 'Can you blame me for this?'

Dean didn't say anything, but stood and stared at the not-quite-man before him, close enough as he was that Dean could feel his chill. He stood only a little shorter than Dean. At this proximity, Dean could see his that his inordinately pale skin was paper-thin, that his hair was a dull, dark brown, that opaque blue eyes were red-limned.

And then his features rapidly changed, and contorted to pain, as he was suddenly feet from Dean, hunched and clutching his belly, staggering further away.

'Cas?' said Dean.

'I can't—' Castiel managed, before crying out, and falling to his knees, one blackened hand dropping before him to ease his way, the other around his abdomen as he bent nigh in half, wheezing with discomfort. He head was bowed, falling in shadow. 'You need to leave,' he said, his voice harder then, darker with uncharted timbre.

Dean bit his pipe and strode over to the man, grasping him by the shoulder. Castiel's reply was a low growl. The sound shook something deep in Dean, but he resisted instinct and struggled with the vampire, trying to pull him to his feet, concerned, despite the peculiarity of this situation.

Castiel snarled wordlessly and before Dean knew it he was pinned back against the brick of the alley wall, uneven clay digging into his back even as he felt his throat constrict with the vice-like grip of a cold hand.

Castiel's face had changed. His eyelashes had bleached to an unearthly white, rimming bloodshot eyes whose pupils burned a scorched rust-red. Bloody, scissor-sharp teeth had torn through his gums, viscous, brackish-smelling liquid dripping between them.

'I cannot help myself,' he said in a voice that grated, heavy and commanding, shooting feeling up Dean's spine. The ricocheting emotion wasn't terror, but it was not courage either. It was… oddly unidentifiable. Yet Dean did not struggle. Later, he told himself it was surprise, that he was stunned by the impossible speed at which Castiel had moved. In the moment, however, as Castiel lent in towards his neck, scenting him, there was the barest, faintest spark of heat that grew in his stomach. But before he could touch Dean, even though he was so close Dean felt the cold breath of death against his throat, Castiel began to shake violently, and staggered back, confusion and true fear in his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' he gasped, and he turned, running and stumbling away from the other man, until he regained his speed and was gone as if he was never there.

Dean stepped away from the wall, half swallowing, half coughing as he massaged his throat. He found himself wondering if he was hallucinating, if he had been dreaming, until he heard a distinct crunch underfoot that he realized he'd dropped his pipe.

The mahr never had dreamt a dream of his own, but three weeks later he still woke in a cold sweat, the echoes of frosty breath ghosting across the back of his neck in the watery early-morning sunlight.


End file.
